


Delicate (like butterfly wings)

by fantasiavii



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Pining, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, Spoilers for Book 2: Wayward Son, Watching Movies Together, is it pining if you're in a relationship, seriously don't read if you haven't read Wayward Son, too many references to The Princess Bride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 16:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasiavii/pseuds/fantasiavii
Summary: Simon’s hand is resting on his knee, absentmindedly worrying the seam of his jeans.  Slowly, carefully, I slid my hand over his.  He freezes.Please,I want to say.Let us have this.Instead, I say, “Can I watch with you?”





	Delicate (like butterfly wings)

**Author's Note:**

> Something short because I needed something soft(er) after Wayward Son. Probably works better if you're familiar with the plot of The Princess Bride. (I was daydreaming about future Snowbaz having a lazy day watching movies on the couch and then a gifset from The Princess Bride crossed my dash and now this exists so.)
> 
> Also this is my first fic in this fandom and first published fic in awhile so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty!

Unfortunately, there’s no hurrying air travel, especially through American airports. 

(They even make you take off your _shoes_.Paranoid bastards.)

The flight back to London is even longer than on the way out.Almost eleven hours in the air now.I cleared Agatha’s apartment complex of its rat infestation before we left, as well as draining a raccoon, but both Bunce and Simon still seemed concerned.I told them I’ll be fine.(I think I will be.All my injuries have healed, though there’s still a lingering feeling of being parched.I blame the desert.)

Bunce practically vibrates with anxiety all the way through security.She’s lucky the TSA agents don’t pull her aside for acting suspicious.Simon, wingless, keeps his head down.He’s been quiet ever since Bunce came to fetch us from the beach.He hasn’t gone back into battle mode, hasn’t even grilled Bunce for more details past that first conversation.It worries me.

(Everything about him worries me right now.We never finished the _other _conversation.The one Bunce interrupted.I still don’t know what he was going to say.)

We got here hours before our flight but American security takes so long that we barely have time to find food in the terminal before we have to board our flight.We have slightly better seats this time—still in the back, but a row of three off to the side instead of in the middle.Simon takes the window seat and I sit beside him.Agatha is coming on a different flight.(And probably booked first class.) 

It doesn’t matter.Simon puts the armrest between our seats up and it gives me the smallest feeling of relief. (I’m pathetic.)

But I make sure to sit so our legs are touching anyway, pretending the seat is too cramped to do otherwise.(It really is horrendously small.Economy should come with a public health advisory.)

We’re all tense and nervous as the aeroplane takes off.Bunce still hasn’t gotten over her anxiety to get home, but there’s little we can do while stuck in this plane.She’s magicked her phone and checks it constantly but there’s no new messages.

I think about trying to talk to Simon.We’re here for another ten and a half hours.The weight of our unfinished conversation is hanging over us with all the oppressive force of the Midwestern sun. 

How do you even pick that back up? _I was trying to tell you that I love you but I don’t think you got it._ But then I’d have to say those words out loud.And what if he doesn’t say them back?The thought makes me feel ill. 

And then there’s the problem of Bunce.And everyone else sitting around us.And the fact that we’re here for another ten and a half hours.What if it all goes wrong and we’re stuck sitting here?

Before I can decide on a course of action (and a spell to keep away eavesdroppers), Simon gives up on looking out the window and turns on the tv screen.I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

After a few minutes, he makes a little disbelieving sound through his teeth, and I know it’s another action movie.He seems to like them, despite his constant critiques of their fight scenes.Or maybe that’s why he likes them.He was—he is—so good at that kind of thing.

There’s a job for a retired Chosen One.Fight choreographer and stunt coordinator.But he would have to move to California, and I couldn’t bear living there permanently.

(I don’t allow myself to think that I might not get a say in the matter.)

(It’s stupid anyway.It’s not like Snow has shown any interest in it besides watching the films.)

He’s concentrating on the screen now and he doesn’t notice me watching him. The sun coming through the plane window lights his hair up gold.I want to run my hands over the newly shaved sides, tangle my fingers in the curls.I want to kiss the mole just behind his earlobe.I want…

I spend so long staring that when I finally look away, the afterimages burned inside my eyelids are all in the shape of Simon.

I wonder how long is an acceptable time to wait before I pretend to fall asleep on his shoulder. 

He surprises me by laughing.Just a small, short huff of breath.But the curl of his lips is undeniable. 

When was the last time I made him laugh?The Renaissance Faire?It feels like a month ago, but it’s been hardly a week. 

I want to share that with him again.Laughter, I mean.

Simon’s hand is resting on his knee, absentmindedly worrying the seam of his jeans.Slowly, carefully, I slid my hand over his.He freezes.

_Please,_ I want to say._Let us have this._

Instead, I say, “Can I watch with you?”

“Oh.”He nods jerkily.“Yeah, all right.”

He hands me one earbud and I put it in, pressing closer to him.I need to, to see the screen.I hear his heartbeat quicken slightly.

Simon whispers to me, “It’s one of those American superhero films.” 

I’ve never watched any of these films, but I know one of the students in the year ahead of us tried to make “Avengers assemble” into a spell.It didn’t catch. 

Simon continues, “This man, Captain America, he was frozen in ice for seventy years after he saved the world.Everyone he knew is dead.”

“He’s immortal?”

“No—I don’t know.He’s a superhero.”

He’s a superhero.As if that explains everything.I look down at my own pale hand, still cupped over Simon’s. Both of us, we’d look something like superheroes to the Normals.Or we would have, back when Simon carried all of magic in his chest.Now there’s just me and there’s still so much I don’t know. 

I try not to think of it.I don’t want the life Lamb offered me, not now, not ever, no matter what Simon thinks.All at once, I make a decision.I lace my fingers firmly through Simon’s and lay my head on his shoulder.If he won’t listen, I can damn well show him.

Simon tenses.I pretend to be too absorbed in the movie to notice it. 

_(Please.)_

Slowly…slowly…he relaxes.We watch the film in silence.Our interlaced fingers lay on Simon’s leg, inert.The angle is a bit odd and my forearm starts to go slightly numb.It’s the most awkward handholding I’ve ever experienced. 

I will not let go.

The movie is decent at least.Simon stays quiet until one of the enemies is revealed to be Captain America’s old best friend, at which point he gasps a little and explains it to me.That loosens his tongue.He starts up a running commentary on the fight scenes and there are many.His voice is quiet—so quiet only a vampire could hear it with the roar of the engines.But I squeeze his hand and he keeps going.

At the end of the movie, the institution the superhero put his faith in is revealed to the world to be rotten through and through and the hero destroys it.It feels disturbingly familiar.But the hero is still the hero at the end. 

“Not bad,” Simon whispers, mostly to himself.

I wonder if he noticed the similarities too.But, “I’m glad he’s going after his friend,” is all I say.

“Yeah.”Now that the movie’s over, all of Simon’s tension has returned.My heart sinks in my chest.

“What next?” I ask, trying not to let on that I noticed. 

Simon scrolls through the films once more before his hand falls.“I don’t know. You can choose, if you want.”

I lift my head slightly, just enough to give him a sidelong glance.His cheeks have reddened.I want to kiss the mole beneath his earlobe.

I reach across him to scroll through the movie options.Something with fight scenes, something that Snow would like…My fingers stop over one.“Have you seen this?”

“No.”He shakes his head.His mouth is hanging open a bit and I want to kiss him.I press play instead.

After the first five minutes, Simon’s tension hasn’t eased and I’m beginning to regret my choice.I forgot how this movie started.All this talk of true love…he’ll think I’m trying to say something.

_Crowley._Am I trying to say something?

_Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?_ I’d asked him, hoping he would get it, but never actually spitting it out.And here’s the narrator, translating “As you wish” into “I love you” and making me feel like he can see right through me.

“Baz,” Simon says softly.“Why this movie?”As if he can hear my thoughts.

“It has one of the most famous sword fights in film,” I tell him, which is true.I wanted to know his opinion.I’d forgotten the rest. 

Simon doesn’t reply, mostly because the narrator is telling us how Buttercup’s true love has just died and he’s gaping at the screen.“How can you start a movie that way?” he demands a moment later.

“Just wait.”

Simon grumbles something that sounds like, “Of course you’d like the tragic ones.”

I almost smile at that.“You’ll see.”

When we get to the first fight scene, Simon is scathing.“So obviously choreographed,” he says.“They’re not even trying to hit each other, they’re trying to hit each other’s swords.”

I smile into his shoulder.He continues on, oblivious, and I let myself pretend for a moment that everything’s all right.

“Wonder if that would work on a numpty,” is what he says about the fight with the giant, for which I gently kick his ankle.“Mithridatism,” he says after the poisoning scene.“The Mage wanted me to try it fourth year.” I squeeze his hand at that. 

“Looks like the Hell of the Wood,” he says about the fire swamp and, “Imagine drinking a rat that size?”

“Looks like it would taste as disgusting as a merwolf.”I know the creatures are only poor animatronics, but they fill me with revulsion.

Simon has a lot to say about the movie, but I can’t tell if he’s enjoying it.I worry that it’s bringing back too many memories.Swashbuckling adventures, like something out of a fairy tale.That used to be his life. 

The princess tells her true love, “I thought you were dead once and it almost destroyed me.I could not bear it if you died again , not when I could save you.”

It makes me shiver.Aleister Crowley, why did I choose this movie?All I can see is Simon collapsing at the top of the White Chapel.On the desert sand.I close my eyes but the images do not fade.Simon doesn’t say anything.

In the film, the little boy is complaining to his grandfather that the story isn’t fair, that the story has to have a happy ending.“Who says life is fair?” his grandfather asks.“Where is that written?”

Beside me, Simon makes a quiet noise.It sounds like agreement.

My heart aches.The grandfather is right, even though I know the movie ends happily ever after.The grandfather is right, because if life was fair then Simon and I would have finished our conversation on the beach.If life was fair then we wouldn’t have even had to have that conversation in the first place.If life was fair, happily ever after would exist and we wouldn’t be sitting here holding hands in a moment so fragile I feel as thought one wrong breath could shatter it.

The movie continues on, oblivious.I open my eyes to watch Prince Humperdinck (what a name) lose his temper.He reminds me of the Mage.Simon frowns when the hero (Westley—normal) is killed for the second time.

“They can’t mean to bring him back from the dead again,” he says.“Can you do that twice in one movie?”

It’s a relief to hear him speak again, even if it’s only to criticize the fairy tale optimism of it all.

“Technically, Buttercup only thought he was dead the first time,” I say as the hero’s friends drag him to the miracle worker, who proclaims him only “mostly dead.”Like me.

The three rescuers begin planning their assault on the castle.They have even worse odds than we did going against the Next Blood, which seems impossible, but Westley can’t even move. 

Simon’s grip on my hand changes, tightening slightly.For the first time, it feels like he’s holding my hand back, instead of just letting me cling to him.It makes my heart leap.I glance at him, but he’s focused on the screen.There’s a slight frown on his face, like he’s concentrating.The American sun was good to him; he’s less pale than he was.Still just as lovely.Still just as sad.

The assault on the castle and the sham wedding begin.I lay my head back on his shoulder to watch. 

“What kind of parries are those,” Simon whispers as Inigo Montoya (normal, I suppose, for a Spaniard) starts to fight his arch-nemesis (the six-fingered man—does he have a name?). “And he really shouldn’t be able to fight that well with that stab wound.Wasn’t the six-fingered man supposed to be good?”

“That’s a spell,” I tell him. 

“Hmm?”

“It’s a spell,” I repeat, louder.Without magic, I say, “‘Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.Prepare to die.’ Makes your attacks more powerful but you have to get the full thing out.”

“Oh, right.” Simon licks his lips.“It sounded familiar.Probably I learned it but never used it, because, you know…”

I know.No way could Simon Snow have cast that spell with the fluidity and eloquence needed._Use your words._Turns out, it isn’t just him that’s shit at communicating what he needs to say. 

I want to erase the shame that still appears in Simon’s eyes, even now.I want to squeeze his hand and kiss his cheek and reassure him.I don’t.I don’t know how he would react.

“It’s a mouthful,” I say.“Not very practical outside of the movies.”

Simon shrugs.

With the help of his friends, the hero rescues his true love, because that’s how the stories always end.The characters win easily, despite having all the odds against them.

We used to be like that.

But Westley and Buttercup live in a world where life is fair, and so their lives get to end after they share a perfect kiss and the screen goes black.

I exhale slowly and close my eyes.This movie was a bad choice.It reminds me of all the things I want but can’t have.All the things I had and then lost. 

Everything in me is focused on Simon’s hand in mine, Simon’s body pressed against me, Simon’s breath and heartbeat.Now would be a good time to pretend to fall asleep.Then I would have an excuse to stay.

“I liked that fight scene,” Simon says, startling me into opening my eyes.

“What?”

“The last one.With the spell.Completely unrealistic, but satisfying.”There’s a bit of a smile in his voice.His thumb starts to rub the back of my hand.

“Oh,” I say.“Yeah.”I can’t think of anything else to say.I wonder if he knows he’s doing that to my hand.He hasn’t tensed back up. 

“It’s a weird movie though,” he continues.“Like a fairy tale, but not one I’ve heard of.”

“I think it’s meant to be that way.Like a combination, but new.”Am I making any sense?Is he going to stop rubbing circles into my hand?Please don’t let him stop.

“But what about the end?With the kid and his granddad?He said ‘as you wish’ like—like it was real?”He scrapes a hand through his hair and I experience a strange moment of being jealous of Simon’s own hand.His grip on mine doesn’t waiver.

“I never thought of it like that,” I tell him.“I thought he was just trying to tell him he loved him.”

Simon makes a noncommittal sound.I hardly dare to breath, lest I disturb whatever easiness the movie created between us.

Lazily, he flicks through the movie options.“What about this one?It’s another revenge story.”

I barely glance at the film.The edges of him are glowing a reddish gold in the fading sunlight.He is so precious to me and I don’t want to lose him. 

“As you wish.”My voice is too soft.I worry he won’t be able to hear me over the engines.

Simon’s gripe tightens on my hand and he turns to look at me and his eyes are so blue.He heard me.

**Author's Note:**

> I strongly resisted putting a reference to the song "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" in this fic, mostly because it's used as a spell at the end of Carry On and idk if it's a good spell, but just so you know I was listening to it a lot writing this and it is my current mood thinking about Any Way the Wind Blows. Fingers crossed these boys get happiness and tenderness.
> 
> Also, full disclosure, I know nothing about fencing and fight choreography. I did watch a fencer's breakdown of the (first) fight scene but it didn't have very much influence on what I wrote.
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> [tumblr](https://fantasiavii.tumblr.com/)


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